


Monarchy of Skill

by Anarchyinplasma



Series: Sorrowful Thorns [1]
Category: Destiny (Video Game)
Genre: Crucible match, Gen, Violent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 06:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6970372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anarchyinplasma/pseuds/Anarchyinplasma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dredgen Yor ruled the crucible at a level of skill none could touch...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monarchy of Skill

**Author's Note:**

> I like Destiny lore, especially that surrounding Thorn. so I wrote this. Do let me know what you think.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> (As an aside, this assumes there were swords prior to us encountering Oryx, as shown by the artefact "Radegast's Blade".)

Nothing gives an adrenaline rush like a crucible match. The idea of fighting other Guardians with no safety guards, live ammo, you get hit, you go down hard. All in the name of sharpening your skill in the fire of honourable combat. Because of this, there is very much a hierarchical system; and Dredgen Yor was firmly at the top of that hierarchy.

Shaxx insists there is honour in single combat, in beating your opponents on a purely skill-based level. Most top hunters disagree, there is no room for honour in a fight, least of all in the fires of the crucible's heart. As in most things, Dredgen Yor takes that a step further than most.

He prefers single elimination rumble to anything else, no rules, no team to slow him down or get in his way. It's crucible in its purest, kill or be killed, nothing to dilute the experience.

The first he knows of any of his opponents, it's the burning roar of a shotgun and the heavy slamming of titan boots. Instincts save him, he ducks and rolls, body turning to smoke with a subconscious thought. He reorients himself quickly, Thorn coming up to deliver a round in his opponents back.

The titan dodges and Yor takes a moment to scan his surroundings. There are steps directly to his six o’clock, to his left is a sheer drop, and his right a long corridor leading back through to the rest of the arena.

The stone floor splinters slightly as the heavy boots of his opponent slam into it as he thunders towards Yor. Instantly, Yor knows three things:  
His opponent has committed to a shotgun kill.  
His next move will be to slide.  
The best way to dodge is another shadestep.  
The titan’s armour sparks along the floor as he drops into a low slide, scouring lines into the stone. It's a move designed to half Yor’s available target space, leaving him shooting blankly as the titan secures their kill.

Instantly Yor throws his weight into a backwards handspring, becoming smoke on the wind as the shotgun discharges where his gut just was, harmlessly missing its intended target completely. Thorn comes up again and Yor pulls the trigger smoothly, again the clean slicing sound cuts the air apart and leaves a trail in the wind marking it's lethal path. It hits his opponent in the shoulder, and the poison spreads like wildfire, making movement more difficult and severely reducing situational awareness. But Yor is only too aware that he trades blows with the best, and the titan, realising his only chance is to commit to a do or die manuver now, springs up, fist arcing with lightning as he aims to slam a hit right into Yor's helmet.

Yor throws himself forward, again becoming smoke, swirling around his nemesis as he flails around, hoping to catch Yor in what he thinks to be distracting particles. But Yor is a pure blooded Nightstalker, he is in tune with darkness and distraction at a fundamental level; smoke is no mere distraction, it is him, broken down, a mere wraith. Up until he reforms, stock still, arm up, Thorn pressed to the back of his opponents helm, the toxins from the previous round have eaten away at his shielding, and at this range his skull doesn’t merely gain some new ventilation, it detonates; showering the surrounding area in brain matter and shards of glass.

Yor dusts his arm off, flicking away the gore and congealed blood before moving on to find his next kill.

It doesn't take long.

A warlock flies around the corner, his reactions are swift, and he raises a palm, void energy licking the edges of his hand. But Yor puts his own arm up, pushes the offending hand aside, then wraps his own arm around the warlock’s elbow and breaks it. He thrusts the limp appendage away, spins around to kick out his opponents knees, puts a solid foot in his back to put him on his face, then shoots him twice in the head at close range. The first round shatters on the energy shield, the second slices right through the back of his helmet and goes straight out the front, making a defeated whine as it buries itself in the concrete.

Yor turns away, confident smirk on his lips, when he catches a red glint in the corner of his eye. He shadesteps behind a pillar right as a sniper round buries itself in the torso of a titan coming up the steps, causing him to stagger, never one to turn down a bargain, Yor puts one straight between his eyes, before grabbing a grenade off his belt and shadestepping out of his cover. He reforms briefly, then throws himself forward as the next round passes through the smoke-filled space his physical body just occupied. As he regains his bearings he throws the grenade, the sniper ducks, but Yor doesn't need a direct hit, he just needs a large flat surface, like the one behind his new nemesis.

The grenade sticks and begins to emit a torrent of pure void light, the sniper throws himself out of cover to avoid this, and as he does Yor throws at him another of the Nightstalkers arsenal, a small package filled with debilitating smoke. However, as with most things in the arsenal of Dredgen Yor, it has a little bit of extra kick to it. That extra kick is a potent neurotoxin, released with the smoke to make a kill that much quicker. The smoke package attaches and begins to spew it's payload, surrounding the sniper with a thick smoke and slowly killing him. Yor puts in a Thorn shot and the sniper collapses for good. Then Yor's tracker registers a massive spike in movement, three more are behind him, and closing fast.

As the defeated sniper’s corpse falls to the ground, Yor snatches a throwing knife from his dead opponents belt and pivots on his heel, imparting the momentum to the knife as it flies straight into the helmet of the hunter racing up behind him; causing him to stagger as his titan companions pass him. Yor puts a single bullet in his helmet, right through the visor, through the open mouth, and out the back of the head to finish the job. Then turns his attention to the titans sprinting towards him at full pelt.

The one that reaches him first throws out a fist in hopes of catching him, Yor turns again to smoke around it, allowing the darkness to consume him as he considers his next course of action. He comes up on the other side of his opponent to put a knife in between his shoulder blades, digging around with the gut-hooked tip to yank out some wiring that pertains to shielding before throwing himself backwards as his ears detect the trademark whistling of a sword blade. He passes around the blade, it's a brief shadestep, but he hooks an arm over the elbow of the swords wielder and kicks out the knees of the titan he just ruined the shielding of before pushing the arm of the sword wielder so as to dislocate the wrist, causing the blade to drop to the ground as the titan yells in pain and falls to his knees.

Yor hooks a foot under the flat edge of the blade in the spot where it connects to the guard. Kicking it upwards into his hands before thrusting it through the back of the first titan. It punches out through his sternum in a shower of bone fragments, blood pouring from the wound as Yor pulls it back out and puts his whole body-weight into a spin, aiming to kill the sword’s owner in one swing. The massive titan has other ideas, and as the blade spins towards his neck, he thrusts out his uninjured hand and catches the blade, stopping it wholesale, Yor's whole body judders at the sudden stop and he lets the sword go. Throwing himself backwards into another handspring shadestep.

He comes out in a jump, then draws upon the other ability that marks him as a Nightstalker. Talons of void light race down his veins, feeding on the blood he's spilled so far, in his hand forms a bow burning with light, he draws and fires his first shot to the left of the titan, tethering him in place with a stream of brilliant light. He fires again to the right, forming another void anchor. Then for the final time he draws his bow, aiming an arrow directly in the centre of his hapless opponent’s chest.

The burning projectile slams into the titan, turning him to smouldering cinders in the air. Yor releases his grip on his talent. The anchors fading into oblivion as the light leaves his veins cold and empty once again.

Once again, Dredgen Yor is King of the crucible.


End file.
